"Forbidden you going there?"
"Yes, brother, when I came back, he asked where I had been, and when I told him he was wrath, and bade me never go there again. He would not, he said, have it appear that he was begging off from the consequences of what you had done."
"I have begged off. That is to say—I explained it was all a mistake. I meant no wrong, and so it is covered up and passed over."
"That may be, Tony, but against my father's command I cannot go."
"It is such folly," said Anthony, "I will go see him myself. You shall go there. I told Urith that I would send you. My father shall not make my word empty."
He went by her.
She caught his arm, and said, in a low tone, "Brother, why do you make so much now of Urith Malvine? And you treating her as your true love?"
"True love!" repeated he, scornfully. "That is the way with all you woman-kind. If one but sees a handsome girl, and speaks two words to her, at once you arrive at the notion that we have chosen each other as true lovers, passed rings and promises, and wished for a marriage licence. Let me go by."
He walked into the house, and to his father's room, which he entered without announcing himself.
The old man sat by the fire. His account-books were on the table, at his side. The fire was of turf and wood.